Sean Lineen says Connacht will be litmus test of Warriors’ progress

Pat McArthur prepares to take on Connacht. Picture: SNS

DAVID FERGUSON

ONE win in nine years is not a statistic Glasgow coach Sean Lineen is proud of and he believes that his Warriors squad face a true test of their improvement this season when they run out into Connacht’s Galway Sportground tomorrow night.

The paupers of Irish rugby’s last home game resulted in a historic first Heineken Cup victory, one which meant little to Connacht in terms of any qualification but scuppered Harlequins’ hopes of reaching the tournament quarter-finals. So it meant something all right.

Lineen is acutely aware of the fact that his one and only success in Ireland’s western province was five seasons ago, a 40-23 win in April 2007, while a 19-19 draw in March 2010 proved vital in helping the Warriors into the first league play-offs. Glasgow won on their first trip to Connacht in a Celtic League quarter-final in 2001/02, however, last season, Glasgow were given a 37-8 pasting in the Galway wind.

“The stats don’t lie,” he said, although the teams do seem to meet during international periods when top players are unavailable. “It’s a difficult place for us to go. Last season was a low point. This is a different team now, and that was less to do with Connacht, who are a tough team to beat over there, but it was all to do with our level of performance, which was poor.

“We know how tough it’s going to be and you look at their last result at home, a Heineken Cup win over Harlequins, and with a new stand and a crowd that gets behind them, we have to make sure we get our basics right because otherwise they control the territory and you’re stuffed.

“Connacht play a certain brand of rugby but they do move the ball around, and punish you if you back off them. They have always had a very tasty forward pack who like the confrontation; their lineout drives are very strong; their defence hits hard and they want you to run at them, but they also look to win the territory battle and to counter-attack. But we’re concentrating on us because parts of our game have been very strong this season.”

Connacht lost by just two points to Leinster in their last match at home in the RaboDirect PRO12, but remain third from bottom in the table with just three wins. That is only one fewer than Edinburgh, but five off Glasgow and the Warriors know that their bid to claim a top-four spot and reach the play-offs again hinges on their ability to claim points through the five games played without their Scotland players.

Duncan Weir is included in the 22 this weekend, after sitting on the Scotland bench for the first time at the weekend but failing to get on against Wales. He starts on the bench again tomorrow with Scotland’s first-choice fly-half Ruaridh Jackson continuing his recovery from a leg injury suffered in the World Cup and desperate to push himself back into the Test frame before the RBS Six Nations ends.

Lineen has developed much faith in the squad that heads across the Irish Sea, having watched them find their feet in the first two months of the season when the star players were in New Zealand, and is hopeful that the rise this season will not suffer the same breakdown in Galway.

“We’re down 16 players [including injuries],” he said, “but, at the same time, this group of players largely have got us to where we’re at with so many players away at the World Cup. As a coach, you learn as well and while we gave them the opportunity, they have stepped up and shown that they value the Warriors jersey and don’t want to let the jersey down.

“I’m confident with the players we’ve got, the way they’ve come on and the belief that they’ve got, but this will be real test of where we are, in terms of the mental toughness and going there with genuine belief. We’ll find out with the result.”

One player at the heart of that drive to impress Lineen and his fellow coaches has been hooker Pat MacArthur. Now 24, the Prestwick youngster has begun to get to grips with adding a couple of stones in weight to his body shape and still retain the dynamism and ball skills that marked him out as a player to watch with Ayr several years ago. He comes into the starting line-up for Dougie Hall after a fifth straight win, at home to the Scarlets.

He said: “I knew coming into this season with Fergus [Thomson] being injured and Dougie away to the World Cup that it was a big opportunity for me to put my hat into the ring, and then with Dougie coming back I’ve been able to keep my form going.

“Now we have four hookers all fit and competition is higher than it has ever been, so I have to take the opportunity this weekend, at a hard place to go, to keep my place in the team. I’ve always had confidence in myself but it has been about changing that to get the coaches confident in me, and then to assert myself in games.

“This [Galway] is the only place I haven’t been yet and it seems to have been like this all through the season for me – going into new challenges, against a big French team or Leinster in the big European games – and now I have another challenge to go to Connacht and assert myself down there.”

MacArthur last’s start for Glasgow was against Bath in the Heineken Cup but, since then, he has also come off the bench to play his part in the Scotland ‘A’ hammering of England Saxons.

“That was my first A cap, but the season has just kept progressing well and that’s the way I want to keep it going. The first A cap was big enough but then to beat England 35-0 was a good pat on the back as well. Now the aim is to push on with Glasgow to the league play-offs, starting in Connacht.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.